


The Horror and the Wild

by curuvari



Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto, The Amazing Devil (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25588915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curuvari/pseuds/curuvari
Summary: “The Horror and the Wild” songfic: One-shots featuring canon characters as well as original characters friends of mine created.
Relationships: Haku & Momochi Zabuza, Hatake Kakashi/Maito Gai | Might Guy, Hyuuga Hinata/Uzumaki Naruto, Namikaze Minato/Uzumaki Kushina, Nara Shikaku/Nara Yoshino, Orochimaru & Tsunade (Naruto), Orochimaru (Naruto) & Original Character(s), Shiranui Genma & Original Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	1. The Rockrose and the Thistle

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [The Horror and the Wild](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/658375) by curuvari. 



There were no gaps to the darkness. New Moon had already been several days ago, but above the sparse treetops of the pines and bamboo plants hang a blanket of black clouds, which forcefully pushed both the slim crescent as well as every star from the firmament.

It hadn’t taken long for him to fall asleep; the day had been deedful. In the name of their client, they had broken up countless services and, in front of the eyes of the parishioners, cut the throats of those preachers who had been calling for rebellion. They had burned down a cabaret and pinned the scriptwriter’s eyes on their donor’s doorframe – which the man had explicitly wished for; although they had let themselves be persuaded to carry out one or another atrocity, they never came up with such barbaric ideas on their own. Well, almost never. Rarely. The payment, however, had been of tremendous extent. For the time being, they wouldn’t have to worry about money.

He lay fast asleep when the first cry reached his ears. Another. And another. A whimpering sound.

__

_When you call to me asleep_  
_Up the ragged cliffs I scramble_  
_A single thread hangs limply down_  
_And I breathe, “not now, not now”_

Another cry. He fought his way into awakening, sat up and searched the ground for his sword. The forest was home to many a strange bird, but the cries had sounded human. Had someone discovered their hideout? Why else would one stray around in the wild in the midst of the night?

A fifth cry rang, and he realised that its source had to be inside their hideout. When he stretched out his hand for his partner, it touched something wet. Blood? He let his tongue glide over his fingers. Salty. Tears? Huh.

_And I find you all unwoven_  
_Trying desperately to sew_

Should he wake him up? And then? Play the baby’s comforter? He? He was neither a kindergartener nor a poet. These things were better left to the civilians who weren’t familiar with the horrors of battle and war, and to the sheep who insisted on keeping their loyalty to the villages. He let his weapons speak for him, but he didn’t want to silence the younker with a stroke of his sword. The little one was too extraordinary. Too useful. So he let himself sink back onto his bed and attempted to blend out the cries.

_I know the kindest thing_  
_Is to leave you alone_

“Monster.” He flinched. The little one hadn’t cried the word out loud, he had whispered it, but there was such an ugliness to it that it raised the other’s hackles. How often had they thrown the curse at him! With good reason of course. He was a monster, that was undeniable. Perhaps, he had always been one. Had one stacked up the corpses with which he had indebted himself before he’d had even hit adulthood, they would probably have reached far into the sky. Through the black clouds, up to Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and whatever the commoners called these fantasies they so desperately held on to. “Monster,” the child whispered again, followed by a miserable “No! No…”

_When your seams have come unknitted_  
_And you cry out to the sky_  
_I’ve run out of my words, my song_  
_“Just let me die, me die”_

He couldn’t help but wonder who the monster in this nightmare was. He? The youngster himself? With his gift, he had certainly got to hear it a couple of times as well. The nitwits who had damned him to a life on the street surely had feared him, just how the people in these realms feared everything that was strange and uncontrollable. Fools, cowards, sheep. He had learnt to use their cowardice to his advantage. The boy on the other hand? He probably still took the malicious remarks to heart. Wasn’t it about time that he learned to ignore them? Wasn’t it enough that he already refused to feed on them? The world was hard on beings like them. They could only fight back with the same hardness if they didn’t want to break.

_The rockrose and the thistle_  
_Will whistle as you moan_

But the boy didn’t want to understand that. He was too tender and warm-hearted, which, considering his kekkei genkai, was indeed ironic. Should he wake him up? Fine, but then? Then what? What was he supposed to tell him?

_I could try to calm you down_  
_But I know you won’t_

It would have been pointless. At least in his dreams, the lad would have to fend for himself.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry… Mother! No! _No! Monster._ ” Sobbing.  
Slowly and reluctantly, Zabuza came to terms with that this night most likely wouldn’t provide him with any more sleep.

What was the little one sorry for? What crime could he have committed? He hadn’t even resorted to stealing after he had become homeless. Preferred starving over becoming a thief. He had fought with street dogs over the tiniest leftovers before Zabuza had found him, who could only shake his head over such lack of reason.

What had the scaredy cats done to his disciple? What had they made him believe?

_All the pins inside your fretted head_  
_And your muttered whens and hows_

Sobbing. Whimpering, another stifled scream. Damnit, that was enough.  
“Haku.” Zabuza’s hands found the dreamer’s shoulders, and he shook them until the other startled up.

“You talk even more when you’re asleep than when you’re awake,” Zabuza growled. Rustling and sniffing told him that the boy was drying his wet face with his blanket. “I’m sorry,” Haku eventually replied. His voice was shaking. Zabuza closed his eyes.

_All your mother’s weaves and your father’s threads_  
_Let me rob them of you now_

“Your parents are dead, aren’t they?” Haku kept quiet. “How did they die?” Zabuza wanted to know. No answer. ‘They’re not here, boy, but I am. I am the one who has to deal with your noise. Talk to me,’ he thought.

_I’ll darn you back together_  
_When you think that you’re bereft_

“Spill it. If you keep whining, you’ll have to find a new hideout.”  
“They’re dead,“ Haku finally confirmed. “There we go. Killed?“ Silence.  
“I can’t see it if you’re nodding, boy.” Hesitation.

“Yes,” it came back quietly.  
“Both?”  
“Y-yes.”  
“By whom?” Silence. Again. Heavens, was it really that hard to answer the question?  
“How did your mother die?” he asked. After all, if had been her whom Haku had mentioned in his dream.

It took ages for Haku to respond, and Zabuza was almost ready to give up and make another attempt to fall asleep.

“She had the hyōton,” Haku whispered.  
“Ah. So you got it from her.”  
“Yes.”  
“Was that the reason why she was killed?”  
“… Yes.”  
“And your father.”  
“Killed her.” Oh.  
“Were you there?”  
“Yes.”

‘Kills the mother in front of the child‘s eyes. Monster,’ thought Zabuza. “How did your father die? Did your clan fight back?” The pause that followed was the longest up until now, and Zabuza was struck with the strange feeling that maybe, he had dug too deep. “Some… Somewhat, yeah,” said Haku eventually. “Well, he deserved it then,” Zabuza mumbled. Hesitance. Wavering. “Maybe.”

“Is there anything else I might want to know?” Yes, there was more, he could feel it. The silence begged him to take the question back. Haku didn’t want to reply, but Zabuza would be damned if he’d spare him this. What was to become of the fellow if he tortured himself with all these memories? He barely defended himself from all the exterior agonies. Maybe if Zabuza ordered him to, but that was it. The boy was obedient, he really was, one of his best traits. Still, if he wouldn’t even fight other people for his own survival, who knew what would happen to him if the pain started to come from the inside as well?

So many had already been broken and sucked out by the world.

Haku was so talented. He could make it so far. He was already faster and more agile and had handled some situations with more intelligence and skill than Zabuza himself, and Zabuza certainly wouldn’t sit by and watch the little one destroy himself. For that, he was way too valuable.

_You’ll wail, you’ll scream_  
_But I’ll never stop_  
_‘cause it’s all that I have left_

“So?” No, oh no, Haku didn’t want to reply, but he would. Sooner or later.

This time, the silence lasted long enough for Zabuza to actually doze off for a couple of minutes. Then, he heard his name. “Hm?”

_I wake and hear you calling_  
_And up those cliffs I climb_  
_I find you with a thimble_  
_Weeping_

“I killed him,” Haku breathed. His voice failed him on the last few syllables. _Oh._ Well.

_And you gently gift it to me_  
_‘cause you’ve no clue how to sew_

While defending himself or as a reaction to his mother’s death, Zabuza figured; nevertheless the reveal hit him a little unprepared, and he wasn’t sure how he had to respond. Was it wrong that felt an ounce of pride for his student grow inside his chest? “Looks like I was pretty wrong about you, huh?” Looked like there was far more to the lad than he had expected.

“But I would never –” began the little one. Zabuza interrupted him. “Hah! Not bad, Haku. Sure served him right, that son of a bitch.” He put as much recognition into his words as he could. “Well done.”  
“… Wh-what?” Haku sounded terribly confused, as if he had expected Zabuza to throw him back into the streets after this confession. Birdbrain. Did he suffer from amnesia? Had he forgotten with whom he had been roving the countryside? How was Zabuza to comdemn him? Wasn’t the preachers’ blood still stuck to both Haku’s and Zabuza’s fingernails? 

“Sensei, it was an accident,” Haku cried out, and the sobbing started anew. Zabuza waited a moment for the boy to calm down by himself, but his supply of tears appeared to be endless. Zabuza reached for Haku and pulled him closer. “Be quiet, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he mumbled. “Goodness, child, are you still not done bawling your eyes out?” Was that the reason for Haku’s shying away from killing? Once and nevermore? What a waste of his skill, but… Bloody hell, then Zabuza would make sure that it wouldn’t happen again, the demon decided as Haku lay in his arms, shivering and crying. Then he would have to keep taking care of that part himself. At this point, it didn’t make him feel anything anyway.

“I would never harm – I would never betray you,” gasped Haku a little while later. Zabuza slowly let go of him.  
“I know, I know. You’re not that stupid.”  
‘And besides, where would you even go?’ he added in secret. ‘No, you are way too peaceful to battle your way through life on your own. The waste of your talent truly is a shame. I’d better make sure that not all of that potential gets lost in its entirety.’

_And I know the kindest thing_  
_– I pray to God, it’s the kindest thing_

They both lay back down onto their respective mats, and Zabuza couldn’t help but grin. The boy a killer. Who would have thought? ‘A traumatised killer though.’ Well, it was at the very least good to know.

He had almost managed to enter into a state of light sleep when the whining began all over again. Frustrated, Zabuza bit into his blanket, but he still got back to his feet, packed his mat and blankets and carried them over to Haku’s sleeping spot. “You don’t live here on your own, goddamned,” he complained while he spread out his bed next to his disciple. “I’m still here as well.” The sound of his words seemed to reach Haku. The whining faded into whimpering, and eventually, when Zabuza was done furnishing around and the two of them lay back to back, silence returned.

“I’m still here as well,” Zabuza mouthed as the first pale sunrays started peeking through the dark clouds.

_I know the kindest thing_  
_Is to never leave you alone_

‘I’m still here as well,’ he thought ere the gentle hands of sleep touched him one final time. The silence lasted. 


	2. That Unwanted Animal

“Are you gonna read me a bedtime story?” Himawari asked, and the begging gaze in her sky blue eyes could have competed with every puppy in all of Konoha. “The one from the rabbit princess? Pleeeaaase, please, please, please, please, please, pl–“  
“Tomorrow,” Hinata interrupted her. Himawari sniffed. She didn’t bother hiding her disappointment, and Hinata was glad that Boruto wasn’t in the room to shoot his reproachful glances at her. ‘So now you don’t have time for us either, huh?’ She could imagine his snide remarks too well. Her son, however, had already gone to bed as he would have to leave early in the morning – his team had been assigned a mission outside the village. Come to think of it, he had probably also wanted to avoid running into his father who had, for once, actually managed to come home before dinner had gone cold. A too rare occasion. Hinata had greeted him with a smile. As always.

“Pleeeaaaseee!” wailed Himawari. She pulled so hard on Hinata’s hair that her eyes filled with tears. Mamma Uzumaki clenched her jaws and fought the urge to push the child away. “I read you a bedtime story yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before the day before yesterday, my little sunflower,” she reminded her daughter. “But I want one now,” Himawari whined. “Pretty please! I can’t fall asleep without one!”  
“Can’t you listen to the fairy tale audiobooks auntie Hanabi got you for your birthday?” she suggested. “Nooo, you have to read!” Himawari beat her small fists against Hinata’s upper arm. “Ow!” That would leave some bruises. Would they bother him? Actually, it was more likely that he wouldn’t even notice them.

“Sorry, but mummy’s still got some work to do,” Hinata tried to shuffle her off. “Listen to the audiobook. The rabbit princess is number five, and tomorrow, I’ll read for you again. I promise.”  
“You’re so mean. You’re the meanest mother in the whole world. I want auntie Sakura,” sobbed Himawari. Hinata felt the blood leaving her cheeks. She swallowed when she closed the door. Oh, let the brat hurl at her whatever insult it could come up with. Why, perhaps Himawari was right, maybe she _was_ mean, but it couldn’t be helped.  
This evening would be spent on the marriage which had already required too high a price for it to fail.

_There’s a second wind coming as we lie here in our bed_  
_It rattles the bones of our fathers, carries whispers from the dead_  
_And you, you light a candle, and I make sure the bairns are fed_

Rose petals and tealights covered the floor of their shared bedroom, and in the middle of the chamber lay their pillows and blankets. How pretty. Looked like he had put some effort into this, but Hinata couldn’t quite believe that he had come up with all of this by himself. The wax exuded the same scent as that one Hinata knew from the living room of the Uchiha family, and the pink-red-white flower combination carried Ino’s signature. How was she supposed to feel about other kunoichi shaping the most private parts of her private life? Shh, Hinata. You mustn’t let your disappointment show. Not in front of him. Too risky.

_You turn the telly on to drown out your fear_  
_And make the bed up silent on the floor so no-one will hear us_

From the living room, the lively voice of a news reporter carried over. Hinata understood every word she said. He had turned up the volume, so they wouldn’t have to hear the silence that had stood between them for what felt like an eternity. How considerate of him. Maybe it’d also help them blend out the screams, if… Now, the children surely wouldn’t notice anything.

He stepped into the bedroom. He unbuttoned his shirt. He helped her unclothe. The gentleness of his touch made the whole situation even less bearable. That whole ‘holding your breath’. The waiting.  
His warm breath blew against her ear. He whispered the sweetest words, but they rolled off her like tears dripped off spilt candle wax.

Were these his own words anyway? Even if, he certainly didn’t mean any of them, and _even if_ , he would have forgotten every single one of them the very next minute. As soon as… Soon. She didn’t need to remember his honey-sweet phrases or to get used to his gentleness. None of that would survive the moment.

_You try so loud to love me, but I cannot seem to hear_  
_‘cause you, your touch, my skin peels off like paint_  
_And beneath all of our panting, there’s this noise I cannot shake_

How careful and loving he could be, but his grip tightened and his touch became more and more intensive, and she felt it come closer, the demon. The scars that his claws had left on her hips during that night in which Himawari had come into existence – and under her left breast when they had conceived Boruto – to this day, she wondered if it really had been the nine-tailed who had tried to rip out her heart or if it had been the one with the pure, innocent, sky-blue eyes. She was expecting his arrival. She felt like she could already see his chakra shine through her husband’s skin. The beast extended its claws.

_Can’t you hear that scratching?_  
_There’s something at the door_

Didn’t he feel any of it? Was he fully conscious? Did he remember? She had never dared to ask. Her whole life, she had courted him. She had been willing to sacrifice it for him. Once too often. Receiving the blessing for their joint future had costed everything, and everything couldn’t have been for nothing. There was no way back.

_The wind has picked us up now, we’re hanging in the air_  
_And as you grip me like an animal that you’re about to spear_

_“Be good to me,” I whisper_  
_And you say, “what?”_  
_And I say, “nothing, dear”_

His teeth pierced into her lips and she returned the kiss, smiled while doing so, like she always smiled, swallowed down the simmering inside her chest, pushed all thoughts away.

The thought of her son leaving for a mission the next day and nobody knew whether or not he would return from it. As was the case with any mission given to any shinobi.

The thought of her having allowed for her children to be sent to the academy. She’d let it happen that Boruto had tied on the forehead protector, and that one might send him and his sister into the next war, and that their lives wouldn’t be any better than the lives of their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents – if the peace didn’t last. Why hadn’t she broken that cycle? Why hadn’t she protested? Why hadn’t she taken the children and gotten away? But how could the hokage’s flesh and blood not join the army? Naruto wouldn’t have had a choice, so she hadn’t forced him to make one. Had swallowed down the simmering. Had smiled. Had committed the same crime against her children as her own father had against her. Himawari was right about her. She _was_ mean.

_Can’t you hear it?_

The thought of all the words that were being said about her behind her back since her cousin had died on the battlefield and she had refused to claim her rightful position as the family’s heir. How her own family laughed at her and cursed her and wished for her to have died in his stead. Not that she didn’t agree with them. Hanabi still denied that there were rumours going around, but Hinata was neither blind nor deaf, even though the majority of her acquaintances appeared to believe the opposite.

_It can hear you_

The thought of her husband preferring his office to their shared home. The thought of there only being three people who could put the light which Hinata had once fallen in love with back into his eyes, and that none of these three people were part of their household. She had never meant as much to him as he had meant to her. Not even remotely. At least the children, it seemed, had grown onto him, but if he’d had to choose between Sakura Uchiha and Boruto? Between Himawari and Kakashi Hatake? Between their family and Sasuke Uchiha?

_It wants me to_

Smile, keep quiet, wait. He bit into her lower lip, pulled her closer, and she returned the kisses and pressed herself against him, and she…

_Throw the plate at the wall_

The claws sank into her skin like shards. “No! Stop it!” She smelled blood, tasted blood, felt it run down her skin. Warm. A strange sound rolled out of her throat, low and threatening and thundering, and she felt Naruto’s gripping her hands. She pushed him away.

_I’m the paper cut that kills you_  
_I’m the priest that you ignored_

It wasn’t like they hadn’t warned her. How often had Kiba and Neji questioned her feelings! Carefully, but persistently. With how much scepticism had Ino and Sakura realised her constant blushing every time she came near Naruto! But she had insisted, she had been so adamant about it that nobody had thought it senseful to doubt her absolute devotion to Naruto, her willingness to give up everything for him. Neji had seen that the infatuation hadn’t been mutual. Neji had sacrificed his last few breaths in order to draw Naruto’s attention to her. She should have taken it as a sign, but she had nipped all her doubts in the bud of her blind, blind hope.

_I’m the touch you crave_  
_I’m the plans that you made_

Neither she nor Neji could force Naruto to love her. A wedding ring didn’t equal Cupid’s arrow. They had recognised that too late when they had already damned each other to an existence full of coldness and loneliness, and she was so incredibly tired of that whole situation. Nothing had turned out the way she had imagined it to.

_Fuck all your plans, I’m bored_

If only she had let her dreams be more realistic. If only she hadn’t get lost in her fantasies. If only she had listened. Smile, swallow, keep quiet, hope, smile, swallow, keep quiet. The growl became louder. The claws reached deeper.

_“And can’t you hear that scratching?” I ask your eyes_

“Stop it!” someone yelled as if from a great distance. The growl transformed into a screeched laughter.

_The door below it splinters_  
_And the creature creeps inside_

The sky blue of Naruto’s eyes was replaced with the fox’s red when he gripped her shoulders. She beat her teeth into the back of his hand and tore away from him, headed towards the kitchen, accompanied by her own uncontrolled laughter. She had grown tired of him. She had grown tired of that life at his side. That lost life to which there was no exit – hold on, yes, there was a way out and she wanted to take it, but the demon caught up with her before she had even reached the doorstep and she screamed and baulked and thrashed around in his grip. Her blood dyed his toes dark. “Stop! It!”

_And we fall into each other, the scratching grows so loud_  
_Because that unwanted animal wants nothing more than to get out_

Foam clouds of saliva fell off her chin and down to the ground, and Naruto wrapped his arms around her and held her so tight she gasped for air. “Calm down,” he hissed, and she laughed, laughed, laughed a dry laughter.

_And I scream, “what’s the time, Mr Wolf?”_  
_But you, you’re blind, you bleat, you bear your claws_

The mighty fox demon thought he was in control! She kicked for his leg, bit his hands, and he endured it. “I’m here,” he whispered. Her chest grew tight.

_And you rip my ribcage open and devour what’s truly yours_

No. No, he wasn’t here. He was never here. She was all alone. She was the one left behind in this goddamned huge, silent, lonely house, day after day, always expecting the worst and incapable of doing anything about the fears that consumed her every night. After all, she had to fill the position of a responsible wife, kunoichi and the Land of Fire’s Lady. “Let go of me!” she snarled and shrieked and roared and screamed, she bit him and kicked him and beat him and scratched his legs with her toenails. The demon pressed her down, growling, and they tossed about while the weathercaster predicted that the following three days were to bring nothing but sunshine.

_And our screaming joins in unison, I cry out to the Lord_  
_‘cause if we join our hands in prayer enough_  
_To God I imagine it all starts to sound like applause_

_Can’t you hear it?_  
_It can hear you_  
_It wants me to_

He had once more got a hold of her, but she shot her head upwards against the weak point underneath his chin. The fox collapsed. Hinata’s head felt like it was splitting open; she felt sick and the world as beginning to go black, but she cast her unconscious husband aside and continued her run to the kitchen.

_And these plates, they smash like waves_

The clay shards didn’t cut deep, the porcelain shards were more useful in that regard. She broke one plate after another and experimented on herself. Blood, saliva and sweat wetted her body and dropped onto the tiles. “Hinata, stop it!” it came pleadingly from the bedroom.

_Place your hand in mine_

She had witnessed the nine-tailed’s self-healing abilities a couple of times, and it barely surprised her that Naruto had already regained consciousness. She kept calm. He had missed his chance to stop her anyway. When he reached for her wrists, she had already cut them through, and the pool of blood on the tiles grew and grew.

_And on the wind it howls_

Her triumphant howl was cut short by the sound of the opening front door. One moment later, she felt something pierce her neck. Damned, she thought. Looked like he had sent a clone of his to get backup. No, he really wasn’t quite as stupid as they all had tried to make him believe. That was her last thought before the narcotics’ effect kicked in.

_How long can this last?_

In her white, pupilless eyes lay the wild expression of a hunted prey animal. The swollen veins on her temples hadn’t subsided since she had woken up from the anaesthesia. “Doesn’t that use up an enormous amount of chakra?” Shikamaru mumbled while watching Hinata Uzumaki through the hospital room’s window. “She might even go blind,” Sakura Uchiha informed him. “Temporarily or permanently?”  
“Depends on how far she’ll take it.” Shikamaru shuddered. “Scary.” And the sight truly was scary: The wounds which she had inflicted to herself, at first with the help of her fingernails, then with shards of broken plates, had been sewn together, but her face was as pale as the walls behind her, saliva dropped from the corner of her mouth and an insane smile twitched around her gnawed lips. “Will she recover?” The question had come from Naruto. He too had received countless scratches and bite wounds when he had tried to keep his self-destructive wife from causing greater harm, and he sounded exhausted. Sakura empathetically put her hand on his back. “Certainly. She made it last time, remember?”  
“This stuff has happened before?” fell the words from Shikamaru’s tongue ere he had been able to really think about whether or not it was adequate for him to dig deeper. Sakura’s fist hit his shoulder. “Not a shred of decency,” she grunted. He rubbed the spot where she had hit him and mumbled an apology.

_But that second wind is coming love, it’s coming for all we own_  
_And on the creature scratches, it doesn’t know how to get out_

„When we started having children, she tried to rip off her breast, or maybe even rip out her heart, I’m not sure,” croaked Naruto. “And later on, it’s happened a few times more. Most of the time, she only starts scratching her skin when I get too close to her, and sometimes, I can get her to stop, but like this…” He paused. “I’ve never seen her like this before,” he finished the sentence. “Maybe I should’ve just stayed away from her.”  
“If she hates it so much, one should wonder why she doesn’t stay away from you. Women. I’ll never be able to make head or tail of them.”  
“Are you nuts? Hasn’t Temari taught you any manners at all, you insensitive horse deer?”  
“Ouch, alright, don’t hit me! Always so violent, what a drag – it’s a fair question though, isn’t it?” He massaged the bridge of his nose and pondered for a while. Then, he slowly turned to Naruto. “You don’t force her to anything, do you?”  
“What? No!” His shock seemed genuine. Relieved, Shikamaru exhaled. “But if it leads to _such_ reactions from her side, why are you two even still doing it?”  
“How is a marriage supposed to work without… She wanted this too; I… Everytime we want to give it a fresh start…” His shoulders dropped and he turned his back on them. “I don’t know,” the answer came, choked with tears. He shivered and staggered. Shikamaru and Sakura exchanged a distraught glance. They linked their arms with his to prevent him from falling to the ground.

_“Hold the hand of the god-child,” they said, “as he falls from the sky”_

They had removed her nails like one removed the claws from a cat’s paws. At least they hadn’t pulled her teeth. As she watched Naruto break down in tears, the twitching around the corners of her mouth stopped for a brief instant.

Perhaps, they should have given up. They caused each other so much pain. Did she really have the right to bring him to the verge of despair like this? The man who had faced death so often and had taken so many of its victims back to the world of the living? Including Hinata herself. But what for? To hold her captive in here until other people decided that she was whole again?

_“Be good to me!” I beg of him_

Let me out, simmered the screams inside her chest. Let me out! But he didn’t hear her. He didn’t see her. He held Sakura’s hand and let Shikamaru dry his tears. Even now, she was invisible. She might just as well have disappeared; it might even have made him happier, although he would never have admitted it. He and his bloody huge heart. What in the name of God had she done to deserve all that?  
And he had buried his claws in her flesh, had wanted to tear her to pieces; he was the fox and she was the rabbit; he was the predator and she his prey, and –

“No,” it whispered inside her. “The other way around. You’re the predator.”

Dried blood was stuck to Naruto’s lips, and the hand she had bitten had been put into an ointment dressing. Even through the window glass, she could hear his whimper.

Why couldn’t he save her? Why had he kept her from dying once more without saving her? “Saving you from what?” the voice whispered. “From whom? From him? From whom, Hinata?” Why wasn’t he helping her?

_“Be good! Be good! Be good! Be good! Be good! Be good! Be good!”_  
_And he replies_  
_“No. No, not I.”_

“Let me out!” roared the voice. “Let me out!” it screamed. No one heard. 


End file.
